


Hearth and Heat

by FemaleJaeger



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood and Violence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Other, POV Alternating, Reader-Insert, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:09:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28345182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FemaleJaeger/pseuds/FemaleJaeger
Summary: Not many people had the pleasure of getting to know the Red Paladin. You counted yourself one of the lucky few. Now.It certainly didn’t start off that way though. Your relationship with Keith was strained to say the least when you were both thrown into each other’s lives. You two butted heads on almost every idea. You remember thinking he was too impatient and hot-headed. So much so that you dismissed everything that he had to say letting your prejudice cloud your judgment. Given time, things started to change.
Relationships: Keith (Voltron) & Reader, Keith (Voltron)/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	1. Rocky Beginnings

“If you were listening, Keith, we can’t go blasting our way to the main ship,” you stood, placing your hands on the table leaning towards him.

“Well that’s where the intel is, isn’t it?” Keith stood to mirror your stance.

“Yes, but-” you started.

“So doesn’t it make sense to not waste time and energy and head straight there?” Keith pushed.

“If you’d let me finish,” you tried to maintain an even tone but he had been interrupting you throughout the whole meeting so far, “we know for a _fact_ that there will be two other battleships in the convoy that aren’t going to let us just fly up next to the leading ship.”

“That’s why we come in blasting,” Keith dismissed.

“ _OR_ ,” you forcefully offered, “we could thin their defenses individually _then_ take on the main ship as a team and make short work of it before reinforcements appear.”

“What makes you think that they won’t call reinforcements the second they see us?” Keith questioned more in defiance than actual concern.

“They’re more likely to call if they see Voltron but the individual Lions aren’t as intimidating,” you guessed while trying to sound like you knew what you were talking about.

Keith didn’t say anything and it made you feel like you were losing your only chance to speak somehow, “besides, like 90 percent of the Galra leaders that we’ve come across are trying to make a name for themselves in the empire and what would set them apart more than capturing Voltron?”

The thought sat for a little too long before Keith asked, “Are you saying that all Galra are out for glory?” He was trying to stoke the fire.

“No,” you defended, trying to backpedal without yielding control, “I’m just saying that they're so blinded in their quest for power that they can’t see that their leadership is based on rocky foundations. They are easily overwhelmed and destroyed by outside forces.”

“Hm,” Keith concluded. He was angry but he didn’t have anything to say.

Allura interjected, picking up the conversation and solidifying a different plan altogether. Neither you nor Keith talked up for the rest of the team meeting, both happy that at least neither of you got your way.

As soon as the meeting ended, Keith stormed out one door and you out the furthest alternative. The rest of the team was used to this by now, that particular day Hunk followed after Keith and Lance followed after you.


	2. Point of Concession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance swings the issue around to open your eyes. Hunk uses his charm to have Keith seeing the issue from his point of view. These interventions lead to an unfortunate apology.

**Lance and You**

“Hey, y/n! Wait up!” Lance jogged up to your side as you walked as far away from the dining hall as you could get.

“What’s up, Lance?”

“Just checking in,” he answered, “You got pretty heated today with Mullet.”

“Yeah,” you felt bad for a second and then shook your head, “He never listens though! He always thinks he’s right and refuses to take anyone else’s opinion into account!”

Lance nodded along so you continued your speech.

“Who does he think he is anyway?” You furrowed your eyebrows, actually debating it for a second.

“Sounds a lot like you,” Lance offered with a teasing smile.

“What!? No I-” you tried to justify yourself but Lance cut you off.

“You’re not willing to listen to what he says, how is that any different?” He asked.

“I listen! All I did was listen, he wouldn’t let me get a word in!” You threw your hands onto your hips like a kid arguing, then decided that you should have done anything else but that.

Lance non-committedly shrugged.

“Fine,” you crossed your arms, “take his side, I don’t care.” You turned to leave.

“I’m not taking any sides,” Lance put up his hands defensively, “If anything I’m on your side, your plan made a lot of sense to me and I’m here talking to you and not Keith, aren’t I?”

You stopped and took a deep breath, “Sorry. He just makes me so…” you balled up your fists and grunted in anger.

Lance laughed and threw an arm around your shoulders, “I get it, trust me. It’s frustrating when you don’t think anyone is listening.”

You nodded, finally feeling understood.

“But,” Lance continued, “that doesn’t mean that you can stop listening to others. Nothing would get done, like ever.” 

He made a good point, “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll try to be better about listening,” then added, “but I’m not going to apologize unless he does first.”

Lance smiled, “baby steps, I guess.”

~~~

**Hunk and Keith**

“I figured I’d find you here,” Hunk called from the training room door.

“Well you found me,” Keith said as he slashed at the training robot.

“Can we talk?” Hunk asked as he entered.

“We are,” Keith responded after a dodge.

“Without the bot please,” Hunk requested.

Keith sighed, “End training sequence,” he commanded and the robot shut down where it stood.

“So that meeting,” Hunk said as Keith grabbed a towel and walked over towards Hunk.

“What about it?” Keith asked sharply.

“It was tense,” Hunk started, “specifically between you and y/n.”

“That’s nothing new,” Keith answered.

“Yeah, but what is up with that?” Hunk asked.

Keith shrugged, “I don’t know, maybe they just hate me?”

“I hardly think that’s the case,” Hunk continued, “do you hate y/n?”

“Not really but, sometimes, like today,” Keith grumbled as he sipped his water.

“You don’t mean that,” Hunk consoled.

“How do you know that, Hunk? They always shoot down my ideas like it would be the worst thing in the universe if I ever had an idea. I’m a person too, I deserve to be listened to!”

“Hey, hey,” Hunk tried to calm, “you’re right, everyone’s opinions should be respected,” Hunk allowed for that to settle in before he pushed on, “that includes y/n’s too.”

Keith rolled his eyes as he let out a harsh breath.

“I mean it, Keith. If you want to be listened to and respected, you have to do the same, it’s a two-way street.” Hunk added sternly.

“I guess,” Keith conceded.

“Good, I’m glad you see it my way,” Hunk smiled, “I think you should apologize for today.”

Keith spit out his most recent sip of water, “What?”

“You wouldn’t let y/n speak until the very end. As someone who wants to be listened to, how do you think it feels to be talked over for that long?”

After a few moments of internal struggle Keith finally said, “Fine! I’ll apologize, are you happy?”

“Yes!” Hunk quickly answered, “Very!”

~~~

**Keith and You**

“Y/n,” Keith called to get your attention.

You paused walking with the holographic tablet in your hand, after looking over your shoulder, you were surprised Keith was calling out to you. “Uh, yeah?”

He scratched the back of his neck, “Sorry about today.”

You were genuinely caught off guard, “for what?”

Keith figured you weren’t going to make this easy. From where you both were standing, Hunk was down the hall peeking out from around the corner. Keith caught his eye and sighed before looking at you and continuing, “for not letting you talk during the meeting.”

“Oh,” you hadn’t expected this, “uh, thank you for the apology.” You remembered your promise to Lance, “and I’m sorry I didn’t listen to your plan.”

“Thanks, I uh,” Keith hadn’t expected you to apologize back, “I appreciate that.”

An awkward silence fell over the two of you. “I’m gonna go now,” you said.

“Ok,” Keith returned.

You both left the interaction feeling a little differently about each other.


	3. The Beginning of Change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In an effort to help your teammate, you decide to volunteer for small acts of assistance.

Eventually, it got to the point where it felt like you knew the team better than you knew yourself. It can be safely assumed that’s just what happens when you spend every moment together for months on end.

You learned a lot of little things about the paladins. For example, Hunk is deceptively charismatic. He didn’t put in the obvious effort like Lance but he never failed to win over the other party. Another example would be Pidge’s surprising sensitivity. Behind their tough act was a scared kid (aren’t we all though) and usually, a little patience went a long way with them. 

Unfortunately, you also saw some tendencies you didn’t particularly like. Lance is selfless which isn’t a bad thing to be but sometimes it came at a cost to himself. Allura is determined and ambitious but sometimes it would lead to her over-extending and overworking. Keith would shoulder responsibilities, maybe worse than Shiro had. When he stepped up as a leader, he often chose to put himself in between the danger and his teammate. At the time, you figured it was how he showed he cared about the safety of the team but you also knew where that path would lead him if he kept it up and sat him down one day over breakfast to talk about it.

“I appreciate the concern,” Keith started and you could tell he was choosing his words with care as he spoke, attempting to be diplomatic, “but what you’re asking isn’t something I’m going to stop doing.”

“I get it,” you conceded, “I would do the same. No questions asked. But if this keeps happening, someone is going to get hurt and if you’re the one diving in front then that person is probably going to be you.”

“Better me than anyone else,” Keith answered plainly.

“Ok,” The mood wasn’t right for this conversation so you pretended to ditch the subject, “how about today we work on evasive maneuvers with the paladins?”

Keith saw through the subject change and connected the two trains of thought, “Sounds good.” He stood up from the table clearing his and your dishes.

“Oh, it’s ok, you don't have to-” you protested.

With the plates stacked in one hand, Keith waved over his shoulder, “Don’t worry about it.”

~

Ever since Shiro went missing, Keith’s leadership role took a lot of his free time. Before, he at least had the chance to train with the team and join in meals in between practice drills. Now that he was leading Voltron, the Voltron Alliance, and still working with the Blade of Marmora, Keith was always serious and busy all the time. It was clearly exhausting him.

In the beginning, your help was more secretive, like how you helped prepare meals and offered to do extra chores around the ship so Keith wouldn’t feel he had to. Then one day you had walked past his room, the door was open but Keith wasn’t there. The place was a mess with papers, and some of them looked pretty important. You slipped in and out but within 5 minutes you organized the papers into a couple of different piles like important-looking documents, lists of supplies: either requested or obtained you weren’t sure, and reports. You were gone before Keith came back but he seemed a little like his old self at dinner that night so you assumed he had been able to go through the information because it was organized. 

The war was not so simply solved by proper paper organization though and there were hard times. Keith took every loss personally and it weighed on him heavily, each loss adding to the weight. There were stretches of days where the team didn’t see Keith and when he was around, you could tell his mind was far away. He hardly smiled anymore.

One day, on a whim, you volunteered to go with Keith for a meeting. This one was with the Blades, you had met them before and claimed you wanted to see Regris.

Keith didn’t say no, how could he when you just decided to pack and take a seat in the Black Lion? He definitely had to be thinking it was odd you decided this was how you wanted to spend your one training-free day.

The meeting was just a basic recap of the recent mission and the review of the next undertaking to make sure that it wasn’t overlapping with any other movements in the Alliance or undermine the efforts of covert operations. You nodded along sagely, playing the part like you knew all of this but actually learning many of these things for the first time. No wonder Keith was never mentally present, he had so much to remember!

“Are there any questions or concerns before we end the debriefing?” Kolivan looked around but sounded like he had already decided it was ended. 

Everyone took the clue and started packing up.

“Wait,” you whispered to Keith, “Shouldn’t someone ask about Dromaius?”

“Oh true!” Keith jumped from his seat and jogged over to Kolivan. They began talking, Keith looked back at you waiting near the table and pointed to you. Kolivan looked over and held his hand up as a greeting. You did the same and they returned to talking seriously. For a few minutes you watched but it was clear that they had to discuss it further.


End file.
